Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
May 24, 2021 7 tweets 4 min read Read on X
The @DHSOIG concluded that ICE and DHS officials repeatedly lied to Congress and the public about whether parents had voluntarily chosen to leave their children behind, insisting that every deportation was thoroughly documented.

In reality, ICE had no consistent system at all.
This is the second time since October that @DHSOIG concluded that Kirstjen Nielsen misled the public.

In October, OIG disclosed that she signed a memo limiting asylum capacity at ports of entry then stood at the White House podium and denied that asylum seekers were turned away.
OIG finds that ICE had no standard policy for deporting parents when Zero Tolerance began, so one ICE field office "typically removed parents without asking if they wanted to be joined by their children."

ICE and DHS leadership told Congress this never happened. That was wrong. The timing of the parents’ removal played a major part in
The @DHSOIG finds that "at least 348 separated parents" were deported without being asked if they wanted to reunify with their child (to be precise, "ICE has no records" for the 348), and some parents who said they wanted to reunify were deported anyway.

Crimes against humanity.
Here @DHSOIG provides three cases of fathers who affirmatively told @ICEgov they wanted to reunify with their children before being deported.

ICE documented each request and then deported the parents anyway—and Kirstjen Nielsen later claimed to Congress it could never happen.
On top of the 348 parents deported with no evidence of being asked about reunification, OIG identified an additional 149 parents who supposedly signed documents accepting deportation without reunification—but the documentation is so sketchy OIG implies it's not trustworthy.
After you've gotten to the bottom of this thread, now read the full list of statements that the @DHSOIG notes Trump's DHS officials made to the public and under oath to Congress.

Nielsen and Acting ICE Director Albence's claims about ICE's reunification process were fictional.

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More from @ReichlinMelnick

Jan 30
BIG news from Bloomberg, which confirms that ICE has gone ahead and *purchased* some commercial warehouses with the aim of converting them into mass detention camps.

This is likely to be the big detention story of 2026 — the literal warehousing of people in converted buildings. Image
ICE has already spent $172 million to purchase two warehouses, one in Hagerstown, MD and one in Surprise, AZ.

ICE will then have to pay more to convert them into makeshift detention camps. Leaked reports suggest each of these two warehouses will hold 1,500 people each. Image
The Hagerstown and Surprise warehouse detention camps are set to be DWARFED by the purchase of a massive warehouse in El Paso where ICE wants to hold 8,500 people, making it instantly the second-largest jail in the entire United States (behind only Rikers Island in NYC). Image
Read 6 tweets
Jan 21
🚨HOLY CRAP. An ICE whistleblower just revealed a secret memo authorizing ICE officers to break into homes without a judicial warrant, which DHS's own legal training materials say is unconstitutional!

ICE then hid the memo from the public, passing it along by word of mouth. Image
ICE secretly told its officers that any time someone has been ordered removed, ICE can break down their door.

It has been accepted for generations that the only thing which can authorize agents to break into your home is a warrant signed by a judge. No wonder ICE hid this memo! Image
Image
Chillingly, the whistleblower says that ICE trainers were directed (no paper trail?) to train all of ICE's new recruits that these administrative warrants authorize breaking into peoples' homes, even though DHS's own training materials still make clear that's illegal! Image
Read 9 tweets
Jan 18
Noem's claim is FALSE. Here is ICE's own data on the detention population among those arrested by ICE:

- 43% no criminal record (up from 6% last January)
- 29% one or more prior conviction*
- 28% one or more pending charge

*two most common are traffic and immigration offenses Image
Noem was confused by the question and defaulted to a different claim ICE makes; that 70% of people *arrested* by ICE have a prior criminal record or pending charges (also way down from January 2025).

As I've documented, that hasn't been true for MONTHS. Image
HOWEVER, total ICE arrests include thousands of people in criminal custody who are being transferred to ICE.

As of October, 2 out of 3 people arrested by ICE outside of a custodial setting, i.e. in American communities, have no criminal record. That's what Americans are seeing. Image
Read 8 tweets
Jan 13
HOLY CRAP. A real scandal; ICE sent a job offer to @LauraJedeed even though:

- A quick Google search would reveal who she was
- She hadn’t completed basic background check paperwork
- She should have failed the drug test

Signs of a total breakdown in the recruitment process. Image
Link to the article here, which lays out the entire shocking story; a full-blown job offer was extended despite @LauraJedeed never completing any of the required paperwork.
@LauraJedeed Read the rest of the article. After she submitted the drug test (that she should have failed because she's a user of legal cannabis), and despite having never submitted ANY other paperwork, ICE gave her a final job offer and a duty assignment.
Image
Read 4 tweets
Dec 25, 2025
There is nothing more inimical to the principles that our country was founded on than a government official declaring that due process should be tossed aside.

Everyone is entitled to due process. Everyone. We thought it so important we wrote it into the Constitution TWICE.
Of course the Constitution doesn’t spell out what “due process” means in every context. It doesn’t do that for ANY process. That’s why we have laws passed by Congress and judicial precedent.

And in this context, there are laws, rules, and regulations that must be followed.
Those pictures are from 2018. Do you know who was president then?
Read 14 tweets
Dec 8, 2025
In every single major immigration raid so far, the MAJORITY of people arrested by DHS officers have no criminal record whatsoever — not even any traffic violations or misdemeanors.

In Washington, DC, it was 84% of all those arrested. In Los Angeles, 57%. In Illinois, 66%. Image
That is simply not true. Not only is being undocumented not a crime, but to have a criminal record requires someone to have been arrested for an offense in the past.
Neither of those offenses are relevant to the question of whether being undocumented is a crime, nor the question of whether a person who may have committed a crime for which they weren't charged can accurately be described as "having a criminal record."
Read 10 tweets

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